Crew Cuts: Checking in with Save the Crew frontman Morgan Hughes

The saga of the Crew’s potential relocation to Austin, Texas will soon enter its fourth month, as will the Save The Crew movement.

The grassroots campaign is scheduled to recap the end of 2017 and provide a few updates on what lies ahead Saturday at Land-Grant in a 2018 kickoff event titled “State of Save the Crew.”

Austin city staff is currently doing legwork to evaluate city-owned parcels that might be suitable for a Major League Soccer stadium or practice facility and Austin City Council is expected to discuss next month an action item regarding potential stadium sites.

With that in mind, Save The Crew frontman Morgan Hughes said he still doesn’t see the month of January as the home stretch and doesn’t view any concrete decisions made in Austin in February as the conclusion of a movement.

“I don’t necessarily feel like this next month is the final push by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m not numb to the fact that it will be discussed soon,” Hughes said. “Whatever happens there will only galvanize us one way or the other. Nimbleness and effectiveness is what it takes to do something like this. Anytime something happens we become stronger and that isn’t going to change.”

Over the last three months, Hughes has at times tried to take a step back and realize that the movement is bigger than him or any of its members, but he cautioned not to confuse reflection with fatigue.

“Not for me,” said Hughes, asked if it has been difficult to maintain momentum since the announcement. “I don’t want to give a canned response, but this means too much. This is something that means so much to so many people. I haven’t struggled at all for energy or to keep any sort of focus.”

Continuing that thought, Hughes said Saturday’s event is less about re-energizing supporters after the holiday season and more about keeping them up to speed on events, messaging and collaborative efforts set to begin in the near future.

“We made a declaration at the beginning of this that transparency is important and that communication is critical and we always want our walk to line up with our talk,” he said. “We say things and we mean it and we follow up with them and we follow through with them and we hold each other accountable and this thing on Saturday is us doing just that.”

Wynalda to visit

With the U.S. Soccer presidential election set to take place in less than a month, candidate and former national team player Eric Wynalda is set to visit Columbus.

Wynalda will join soccer writer Jon Townsend for a Sunday town hall at the Fawcett Center. The talk will be streamed live. Event details can be found here.

aerickson@dispatch.com

@AEricksonCD

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